She Listens in Caves is a monologue first developed when on tour in the UK with the performance company, Goat Island. In London, we stayed in an old building that had been turned into a bed and breakfast. The bathroom contained a tub as large as a cattle trough in which three tall men could fit head to foot and a toilet seat ringed with a bird’s nest of public hair. One night, I dreamt the scene that came to be the central image of the monologue – an old priest’s torture of young men – and, later, back in the United States, learned that it was a common practice in England’s history of torture. I’ve said these words many times and in many places. The images are from the last time I said them at the Chicago Cultural Center’s little red velvet theater. After the performance, a man offered his card inviting me to speak at a conference on human identity; I was too shy to go.

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